Professional photos - how often are you doing them?

Icarriedawatermelon

Hi ladies!

I'm wondering how often you plan on documenting your baby's first year with professional photos? Like any new mother, I take a million pictures on my own, but I'm not sure how often I should get professional photos taken. I had a newborn session and am thinking maybe 6 month and 1 year???? Just curious as to what you're planning on doing. Thanks!

Ashleyfurillo

I'm going to do them once a month but only because I get those promo cards from the picture people every month, $18 for like 8 sheets of photos. Groupon always has JC Penny's promos also. I did a in home newborn session for his first photos but that was expensive and a one time thing

gwenneh

With DS1, I had them about every 3 months, since that's about how often the holidays/birthdays I wanted documented were spaced out. I did that for the first two years of his life, until we moved away from the pro whose work I adore. I wasted WAY too much money on mediocre newborn photos and abhor studio photography after running my own studio, so I'm very, very picky about our photos.

Now I do them myself, partially because I haven't found a professional I like quite as much and partially because I am a pro myself, with all of the equipment and training and all that (just a heavy dose of laziness in that I'd rather have someone else do them for me!) and I'm taking pictures more or less daily.

JaysonandKristin

My oldest turns 4 early next month.  I also have a 2.5 year old son.  I've had professional photos taken of my kids on 2 occasions.  They're just not really my thing.  We take a million photos both candid and posed with just our little family of 5, and we also take photos with our extended families.  Trust me, all of their little lives are very well documented without the sitting fees!! ;P

brandeeteer

We'll do 3, 6, 9 and 12 months. We also did newborn. I have a friend who's a professional photographer so she gave us a great price on a whole package. Mostly we're doing these ages because that's how often their looks really change - or at least that's what I found with my first two kids. After that we'll probably just do annual pictures like we do for the older kids.

Kim22

I have never had a great experience with them so never, just taking our own.

cagoldi

We did NB pics that I absolutely loved. We'll probably also do 6 months and a year. Other than that, we'll just have a zillion pics that DH and I take. A photographer won't capture what I want anyway, like his first smiles, his first time grasping a toy, sitting up by himself, etc.

Jennybabe0706

I'm a photographer and the package we offer to clients is newborn, three months, six months, nine months, and a twelve month with cake smash.... So that's what we will be doing w our munchkin

Kaymee

We did newborn photos. We will probably do them again at 6 months.

With DS1 we did them every three months, and while I lovethem, we ended up with a ridiculous amount of leftover photos. His were also taken at Targets portrait studio, whereas with DS2 we went with a professional photographer. Much more expensive, but the experience was well worth it!

beccaxbooxbear

We did newborn 3 Months and then a year. We wanted to do 6 months but ds1 had rsv for about a month and a half So it didn't work out for us. We also use the 18 dollar package from picture people.

Icarriedawatermelon

Thanks for the input!

SharonB222

Because I go when immediate family visit ($$) as well as milestones ($), it is: newborn, 1 mo, 2 mo, 4 mo, 6 mo, 9 mo, 12 mo, 18 mo, 2 yr. I take a screenshot of the online pics to save for myself. My home camera stinks.

YummeeCookee

There was a photography service that came around the hospital while I was there. It wasnt something Id known about or ever heard of, but of course I couldnt turn it down! So we have a 1 day old photo shoot, then I did 2.5 weeks, which was the "newborn" shots we used for our announcements. I didnt plan on anymore until 1 year old.

rbtrumpet

We did newborn (2 weeks old), but I don't plan on doing any more until #2 comes around.

We have a DSLR, and while we're not professional, it's good enough for me!

babymama619

Not really planning on doing them any time soon. I printed the new born photos with the company logo over them just so I could have copies for the baby album. For Christmas pictures I had a friend help me string lights and swag sheets and they turned out pretty good and we had a good time doing it. I mostly just take lots and lots of pictures myself.

I'm also doing monthly pictures of her in the same place ever month for the first year.

ranaverde

People do this?  In any case, we have several pretty talented amateur photographers in my family, so for us it's not worth the extra hassle and expense paying someone else to do it.

JamieCallow

We did newborn and from the sounds of it we got a pretty good deal! At around 6 months we will make our annual trip to Tennessee to pick up my step son and while there we will have a very close friend of the family get some shots:) She has done everything for us (engagement, wedding, maternity) and there is a doorway there that we have began capturing yearly shots of my step-son in and want to start this with Jack:)! Anyway after that we will do 1 year with a cake smash and that is it!

lafsalot

We did newborn at the hospital, she did a great job, then we had 1 month shots. I will probably wait until 6 months for our professional shots because it will be our 2 year anniversary and our fee is 75 bucks, she wasn't happy with the pics and offered to take just 50 but we liked them and paid the full amount. She gives us the disk with edited and raw image files and we send them to mpix for printing.

dobrydney

We were going to do newborn photos with our wedding photographer because he was great and we were comfortable with him.  It turned out that he wasn't available, and he recommended other people.  Since we didn't know them and their rates were twice what he was going to charge us we just did some ourselves and I think they came out good!